Contemporary dance is the most popular of dance genres, especially among young people, since one can even dance in jeans and a tight polo shirt. The youth dance groups dance to the accompaniment of music created by popular Latvian rock bands and folk groups. Their performances are characterised by the expressiveness and scope of the productions. The first and most notable of the initiators of this style, which combines movement and eroticism and offers a dramatic story in dance, is choreographer Agris Daņiļevičs with his dance group Dzirnas.

The contemporary dance group most widely known internationally is Olga Žitluhina's Modern Dance Company. Olga is also the founder and head of the Modern Choreography department at the Latvian Academy of Culture.

This dance genre is very popular among youngsters; at the Youth Song and Dance Celebration more than 2000 young people and children danced their way through a grand production of Spēlēju dancoju, a tragedy by our literary classic Rainis.
 
In Latvia people go for dances that make you sweat, ones that test your endurance: longest-ever polkas, endless quadrilles, game dances, adapted pas d'Espagne, line dancing, salsa, jazz dance, barefoot "sculpturesque" dancing… All that and the blinding fouettés and double fouettés that are performed in Latvia…